Ramsey
by DragonflyonBreak
Summary: Sam killed Lucifer's dog. I doubt the devil was thrilled about that. Episode tag to 12x15, Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell. Graphic torture.


Summary: Sam killed Lucifer's dog. I doubt the devil was thrilled about that.

* * *

Sam opened his eyes, having been jolted awake from a deep dreamless sleep.

He wasn't in his room where he last remembered being. He was someplace else, a room larger than his own. It was dark and felt eerily familiar even though he couldn't make out much of anything in the flickering, wavering candlelight from the various candles placed around the room. Everything felt fuzzy and sick, like old television static, and he felt a crawling sensation up his spine as he tried harder to make out more details. Vague, distorted shapes that seemed to move and spin and flicker in his vision, left him feeling dizzy, like he'd spun in circles for hours and hours without stopping.

He'd woken up standing upright, something he'd never done before. Neither he nor Dean had ever been prone to sleepwalking, thank goodness. His own bout of wandering off in the night while he'd been slowly going crazy was enough for both of them to last a lifetime. It wasn't normal.

And that had been years ago.

Which meant… he wasn't sure what it meant.

A dream. A spell or a curse. A hunt gone wrong, even. Or… maybe this was something far worse.

Sam closed his eyes, struggling to take a deep breath and realized for the first time how tense he felt. Every muscle in his body felt coiled and tight. He _felt _real. Whole. And yet… everything felt grainy. Weak and indistinct. As if it would all fade into mist and disappear at any second. He took a few steps backwards, eyes still closed, until he felt his back press against the cold wall. It didn't feel normal – it felt both too sharp and too soft at the same time. He could feel it, solid and powerful behind him but it also felt like paper mâché, fragile, like if he pushed hard enough his whole body could go right through it.

His heart was pounding. Sweat trickled down his neck.

And he felt cold.

"Hello Sam."

Sam's eyes flew open and he was pushing himself away from the wall, stumbling halfway across the room before he even recognized the voice that had whispered directly in his ear. Before he realized what that voice meant.

There was nowhere to go. The room still flickered fuzzily round him, his eyes refusing to focus completely on anything. He bumped into a metal table in his haste and heard the clattering of metal tools on top of it – he jerked away, not wanting to know what they were.

He backed himself into a corner, half crouching, arms held out protectively in front of him (as if that would do any good), breathing raggedly.

Sam could make out a terrifyingly familiar form in the darkness, more solid then anything else. The sound of footsteps was impossibly loud, pounding in his ears like a drum, and nearly silent at the same time. Red eyes shone through the dimness of the room, bright and real and terrifying. He watched them as they approached, dread swirling in the pit of his stomach.

"Lucifer…" he whispered as the figure came to stop, towering above him.

"Got it in one try." There was a snap and light flooded the room from overhead, painfully bright, almost blinding him. He blinked rapidly, willing his eyes to adjust. They did, slowly, but Lucifer didn't seem to be in a hurry and he waited patiently before speaking again. "I'm impressed, Sam. You must have gone to college or something."

The devil crouched down in front of him, resting his arms on his knees. The room came into sharp focus around him and he was felt horrified to realize it looked like an autopsy room. The instruments, the tools, the table, the sick smell of embalming fluid. Everything was bright and shiny, real and unreal at the same time. He could see every detail with painstaking clarity but he could also see the haziness of it all, the illusion, the swirling grainy texture that flickered in and out. It made him want to throw up.

Lucifer looked deceptively calm, but Sam could sense his rage, simmering and fierce.

"You're not here." Sam whispered, at he hated himself for not knowing in that moment who he was trying to convince. "This isn't real."

Lucifer cocked his head to the side. His eyes were still red. "Isn't it? Are you really sure? Cause it sure _looks _real to me. And it sure _feels _–" he struck fast, like a snake, and punched Sam hard across the face. The blow knocked him on his butt and left him feeling dazed. He tasted blood in his mouth and his face throbbed. "Real to me too."

Sam turned to the side and spit weakly, his whole body shaking with fear. "I'm sure." He replied automatically, staring desperately at the floor, wishing it would swallow him whole and knowing that it wouldn't. His response felt like nothing more than a reflex. Hollow. Resigned.

When they'd thrown Lucifer back in the cage a few months ago with Rowena's help, he hadn't considered the fact that the cage was still damaged. Hadn't considered that Lucifer could still torment him if he made the effort to reach through those cracks.

He met Lucifer's eyes again. "What do you want?"

Lucifer flashed him a slow, bright smile. He reached for Sam again, grabbing the front of his shirt even when Sam cringed backwards away from him, and then pulled him roughly to his feet.

"To have a little fun. Release a little pent-up rage. I have both the time and the strength for it right now." Lucifer said simply, wrapping an arm around his shoulder companionably and walked him towards the metal table in the center of the room. They stopped just beside it. Lucifer's breath was hot against his ear and Sam stiffened as the devil spoke, his voice low with rage. "Hell is kind of a chatty place and I've heard things about you recently, through the grapevine, if you will… want to know what I heard, Sammy-boy?"

He didn't and shook his head in response.

"I heard that you killed my dog."

_Shit._

Sam felt his eyes widen just as he was thrown on to the table, Lucifer's power holding him firmly in place. The lights were bright overhead and the ceiling was a mirror, his own face, pale and frightened reflecting back at him. Lucifer secured his arms and legs to the table using handcuffs and then Sam felt the weight holding him down disappear. His ears were ringing and his heart pounded painfully in his chest as he struggled uselessly at his bindings.

Lucifer disappeared and there was the sound of clanking metal against metal – tools being picked up and put down repeatedly, as if he just couldn't decide which one he wanted to use.

"I'm pretty certain it's against the man code to kill another guy's dog. In fact, I'm _positive_ that it's written in there somewhere." Sam blinked, chest tightening in fear as Lucifer suddenly came back into view, towering above him, holding a scalpel.

"Don't," he pleaded uselessly, chest tight with fear. "Please, don't."

Lucifer ignored him, tearing his pajama shirt apart with ease, exposing his bare chest. "So, imagine how I felt when I hear that my favorite little _bitch _has killed my other favorite bitch. Can you guess how I _felt, _Sammy?" He pressed the tip of his knife against Sam's chest hard enough for blood to pool underneath it and run in a single line down his belly.

"Angry." Sam gasped automatically when he drove the knife in a little bit deeper.

The devil smiled at him coldly. "That's right. Angry. It's just… it's a little more than I can handle right now, you know?" he asked, waving his free hand idly as if expecting Sam to just _get it_. "I've had _way _too many buttons pushed lately and I think, and this is just me spit balling here, but I _think _that I deserve to relax a little. I _think _we both know that you've had this coming. I think we both know that you deserve this, don't we?"

Lucifer stared at him challengingly and the automatic, instinctual _yes _was on the very tip of his tongue.

Sam swallowed thickly, trying to bury that loathsome word deep inside him. He didn't want to play this game. And in the grand scheme of things, he knew deep down that the hellhound wasn't very high on the list of the devil's twisted priorities – it wasn't really the dog he was angry about. It was the fact that it was _Sam _who had killed her, _Sam _who had overpowered him, _Sam _who had thrown him back in hell, not just once but twice, _Sam _who defied him and stood up to him and escaped his wrath one too many times… _Sam_ who in Lucifer's mind was a possession, a thing, a _toy_ that he owned but who still managed to take everything away from him, including his damn dog.

Lucifer just couldn't win.

That's what he was really angry about.

And as terrified as Sam was of whatever was about to happen, he was pretty damn proud of that.

"Screw you." He whispered defiantly.

Lucifer laughed a low, merciless laugh. He reached for Sam's face with his free hand and stroked his thumb almost tenderly along his jawline, smiling wily at him. Sam couldn't look away from his burning eyes. "Maybe some other time. For now… let's just pick up right where we left off. It's been too long since I've seen your insides – I've almost forgotten what they look like."

He hummed almost thoughtfully, patted his cheek, and glanced briefly around the room before snapping his fingers. Classical music filled the air – Beethoven, Sam recognized distantly. Then Lucifer quickly dragged the knife through his soft flesh, cutting through his skin like butter, beginning from the top of his chest and ending near his naval.

It was so quick that he almost didn't feel it at first. It was there but distant. Sam watched, horrified as Lucifer pulled back flaps of his skin, pinning them, and exposing his insides. He traded his scalpel for a saw and got to work.

Then the pain _really_ hit.

And Sam screamed.

Screamed and screamed and screamed.

* * *

"_Sammy!"_

He struggled against the cold hands touching him, pulling at him, ripping him apart mercilessly – he ached and hurt and felt like the world was burning.

It was dark and everything was moving, like a boat on choppy seas. He felt disconnected and blurry, unable to tell where he began or where he ended. Sound came as though from a great distance, hollow and echoing and unintelligible. It made his head pound fiercely until he thought his skull would split in two. Maybe it already had.

"_Sam! Wake up, Sammy – I need you to open your eyes!"_

Something gripped his face and he raised his hand to push it away, terrified of the pain that would accompany that simple touch. Lucifer didn't let go and so he twisted, or tried to, until the sharp, stabbing pains that exploded from his entire body caused him to scream in agony. Everything hurt. He was on fire, burning and broken. Lucifer had cut him open, had peeled his skin back and exposed his insides, touching things that were never meant to be touched or seen.

He could feel his ribs being snapped, his organs being filleted into pieces, and the smell of burnt flesh from where Lucifer had cauterized the stump that had once been his arm. Lucifer had said he was going to cut off all his limbs and reattach them someplace else – like a sick, twisted version of Mr. Potato Head.

_You gotta give me some input here, Sam. Come on, the possibilities are endless. I think walking on your hands would be an interesting experience. You don't think so? Don't worry – I think you'll warm up to the idea. Oh, I've missed this. I've missed _you_! My creative juices are better when you're around. I can build you however I want! This is, this is _science _– pure and simple. You're a scholar, so I'm sure you understand. _

His guts were hanging out, he could feel them, warm and wet, spread out all around him. He was drenched in his own blood, everything was drenched in it. The overpowering smell of iron made his head spin and he turned to the side again, ignoring the pain so he could throw up, purging everything in his stomach until he could do nothing except dry heave _(hadn't Lucifer cut his stomach out though? he'd made a water-bag and had made him drink vinegar from it)_. Sam sobbed at the memory, gasping desperately for air, all too aware of the tiny slice in his lungs that made it nearly impossible to breathe, air escaping too quickly. He couldn't get enough. He was suffocating, knowing he should be dead, that he was dying, and yet would never feel the relief that death could bring.

"_No – no no no, you are not doing this! Damn it – Sam, wake _up_!" _

A hard slap to the face jerked his head to the side and he cried out, his eyes flying open at last. He hadn't even been sure that he still had them, that Lucifer hadn't cut them out already. It _stung, _firm and harsh, easing the agony of his other wounds, instantly making them distant and muted somehow.

"That's it, Sammy. Eyes on me – come back to me, Sammy. Come on man, you can do this."

That voice. He knew that voice. A millennia spent in the cage enduring every torture in the known universe couldn't make him forget who that voice belonged to.

Dean sounded scared, his voice tightly controlled but fearful nonetheless. Sam tilted his head, trying to find his brother, to find that comfort and protection he alone could offer, but everything was a blur. But… the rough, calloused hands that were touching him, holding him steady, grounding him in reality… those didn't belong to the devil.

Sam exhaled a shaky breath, relieved to find that his lungs worked just fine and he slowly became aware of how violently he was trembling. He tried to see, to make sure that this wasn't some trick to break him down more than he already was. He couldn't tell for sure but the space around him looked like his room, in a blurry kind of way. Sam felt hot, and his head was pounding angrily … but it was different. It was real in a way that visions and dreams could never be. The hyper-real and hazy illusion of hell that he'd been trapped in had disappeared. Lucifer was gone, locked in the cage where he belonged, and Sam was _here_.

This was reality and he sobbed, gasping, with the realization, focusing on his pounding headache and hoping it would erase the phantom pains of hell that still lingered.

"Dean." Sam choked out, immediately reaching out blindly in front of him. His hand instantly met flesh and he felt the stubble of his brother's unshaved face. Dean's hand immediately grabbed his and held it tightly and his face came into sharper focus in front of him. He looked… scruffy, like he did first thing after waking up in the morning.

"Sammy," Dean breathed out, relieved and terrified at the same time. "You… jeezus, you scared the hell out of me. Are you okay?"

"I, I don't know. W-where am I? Please, where…?" Sam gasped desperately, knowing but needing the confirmation from his brother all the same.

There was a short pause before Dean spoke again and when he did, his voice sounded strained. "You… you gotta speak English, Sammy." Dean said softly, brushing sweaty strands of long hair out of his face. "I can't understand Enochian."

Enochian?

Sam scrunched his face, feeling beads of sweat drip on to his eyelashes. He _wasn't _speaking in Enochian – he could, he knew that the knowledge was still there, hazy and distant like all other memories from the cage, reachable only if he looked for it… but he didn't want it, wasn't trying, and it hadn't been Enochian in his head except….

Maybe it had been. Maybe he just hadn't noticed. And the thought that he could be so perfectly fluent in another language that he couldn't even hear the difference, asleep or awake, disturbed him greatly.

Sam swallowed thickly and tried again. "What about now?" he asked desperately, pleading up at his big brother, begging him to understand.

But Dean shook his head, pressing a hand against firmly his chest and pushing him gently backwards when he tried to sit up. "Deep breaths, Sammy – you've got to calm down, okay? Your heart is racing like a freight train. Just, just give it a minute and it'll come back to you. I promise."

Sam nodded quickly, clinging to the childlike idea that Dean could fix anything for him, including this, and did as his brother said, slumping against his mattress and pillows. They were damp with sweat. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on calming his ragged breathing. It helped that Dean hadn't let go of his hand just yet, squeezing it tightly for him. It was the one with scar on his palm, he realized.

A few minutes went by in complete silence and bit by bit he felt the shakes and fear gradually lessen as the comforting sense of reality and Dean's steady presence continued to ground him.

"Dean." He finally whispered, opening his eyes and immediately finding Dean's.

His brother swallowed. "Yeah?"

"S'this English now?" he asked hoarsely, focusing on the shapes and sounds of the words in his mouth and hoping that that made a difference.

Dean gave him a tight smile. "It sure is, little brother."

Sam nodded, relieved. "Good."

Dean patted his chest and sighed, dropping his head back against the headboard. After a moment, Sam asked, "What times'it?"

"Uh… almost 3am." He felt Dean hold his breath for a moment before speaking again. "Sam." Sam closed his eyes. He knew that tone and he didn't want to have this conversation. Not ever. "You wanna… tell me what happened? Because that – man, I've seen you have a lot of nightmares but that, _that_ was something else."

"Dean –"

"Dude, I tried to wake you up for almost twenty minutes." Dean interrupted immediately. His voice was sharp and angry, a desperate attempt to hide how shaken he really was. "You were screaming like… like," Dean rubbed a hand over his mouth and his eyes were dark. "It was bad, okay? So, you gotta give me something."

Sam didn't want to and almost said so except… he didn't feel comfortable saying no. Not when Dean had forgiven him for lying about the British Men of Letters. They weren't supposed to lie to each other anymore and Dean had been pissed enough with Mary siding with the Brits without Sam going behind his back on it too. Besides, he was right – this hadn't just been a nightmare.

"Let me shower first." Sam finally agreed, none too enthusiastically. He sat up slowly, conscious of how _wet _he was. It was just sweat, he knew that, but Sam still couldn't shake the feeling that he was still drenched in his own blood. "Okay?"

Dean gave him an unreadable look but seemed satisfied with his response. "Fine." He pointed a finger at him. "Five minutes."

Sam scowled at him. "Why five?"

"Navy shower plus three extra minutes. Cause I'm nice like that." Dean stood up and rooted through his dresser, pulling out a pair of clean boxers, sweatpants, and a shirt. Sam accepted them gratefully and got to his feet. His brother was quick to start stripping his sweaty sheets off the bed. "And leave the door unlocked."

Sam was too tired to argue and walked across the hall to the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

One of the nice things about living in the bunker was that the water was always hot. He quickly shed his damp pajamas and tossed them aside before stepping into the steamy shower. He sighed deeply, enjoying the warmth. He grabbed a bar of soap and the loofa hanging on the waterspout (Dean had teased him mercilessly for buying that) and started scrubbing his skin, trying to be quick. He was just rinsing the conditioner out of his hair when he heard a loud knocking on the door. "Sam! Time's up, man!"

He sighed, wishing for a few more minutes. It wasn't worth the hassle with his brother though. Sam turned off the water and stepped out, grabbing a towel to dry himself off with.

"I'm out." Sam called out. After a second or two he heard Dean step away from the door and Sam quickly slipped into his boxers and sweats. He brushed his hair back with his fingers and stared briefly at his face in the mirror before looking away again and grabbing his clean shirt.

Sam hesitated to put his shirt on – a faded band t-shirt he'd stolen from Dean a while back – and found himself staring down at his chest, lightly tracing an invisible line from his chest to his naval with his finger.

_You've gotten soft, Sam. It's kind of pathetic, I mean… this is far from the worst thing I've ever done to you – you really think that _this _is painful? Don't you remember when we worked our way through the Spanish Inquisition – I mean, those guys were artists. The things they came up with – it was beautiful. The things that you pathetic apes have come up with to hurt one another… it blows my mind. But the way that you screamed, Sam. Mm, sweet music to my ears - _

"Sammy?"

Startled, Sam looked up to find Dean standing in front of him with a concerned expression on his face.

"You okay, dude? I called your name but you didn't answer." Dean gestured to the open door.

"Yeah," he croaked, swallowing thickly and pulling the shirt over his head. He took a deep breath and offered Dean a quick smile. "I'm good. Promise."

The disbelieving expression on Dean's face told him what his brother thought of _that_ but he was nice enough not to say anything.

Dean's room was clean and smelled like Febreeze when they walked in. There was a case of beer on the nightstand and the bed looked like it had exploded but otherwise everything was neat and orderly. After spending their entire lives on the road, living in cheap motels and the Impala, Sam never would have guessed that his brother could be so domestic. It shouldn't have surprised him though – Dean had always taken care of what was important to him. Sam, the Impala, and now the bunker that they called home.

Sam straightened the sheets and shoved two pillows against the headboard for support and sat down.

"Here." Dean said, popping the cap off a beer and handing it to him.

"Start talking." Dean said, grabbing his own bottle and sitting down next to him, close enough that their shoulders pressed against each other.

Sam took a long drink, nearly emptying his bottle entirely. "Lucifer wanted to say 'hi'." He finally answered, feeling hollow.

Dean's eyes found his, searching his face intently. "So, it wasn't… just a dream then?"

He shook his head. "No." Sam said slowly. "It was… well, not real… but, you know. It was him. From the cage."

Dean took a long drink, absorbing the information. Sam finished off his beer and wordlessly accepted the new bottle handed to him.

"What did he do to you?" Dean asked quietly after a few minutes.

Sam chewed his lip and looked away. At his drunkest, Dean had once told him that it was hard to put hell into words – "excruciating" and "miserable" and "agonizing" just weren't enough to convey that sort of horror and he didn't like to try. For Sam, it was quite the opposite. In the cage, Lucifer had like to talk about _everything_. And he'd encouraged Sam to talk about everything too. He'd wanted to know everything about him, every childhood secret, every thought that came through his mind. He'd wanted to know about his life, his relationships, his brother, his dreams and ambitions. He wanted Sam to tell him what it felt like to have his liver ripped out, to describe in vivid detail the agony of being butchered, eaten, boiled, or dying of starvation. He'd made him talk about what it felt like to be poisoned a hundred different ways, to die of pneumonia, cancer, or gangrene. To be burned alive at a stake, surrounded by people chanting for your death. To have his eyes gouged out, or his head chopped off, or his spine broken. To be skinned, to feel every single bone in your body break at the same time, or to be remade completely from the atoms.

Sam had the words. He was just afraid that he ever started, he'd never stop. That it'd open a door he didn't want to go through. It was better to keep that door shut, to have a few things slip through the cracks then to invite it all in.

And Dean – he was willing to listen. Was willing to be that person for him. Wanted to help him and was the one person on the planet that could understand what he'd gone through… and yet Sam just couldn't bring himself to say anything. Couldn't make his brother listen to the horrors of the cage, not when Sam's nightmares alone made him want to drink through their entire liquor supply and hide for a few days. Maybe it was selfish of him – but he didn't want to talk about it and he didn't think Dean really wanted to know either.

"Don't worry about it." He finally said after a few minutes, downing the rest of his beer. Dean opened his mouth to respond but Sam was quick to cut him off. "Trust me." He said softly, offering his brother a small smile. "You'll sleep better at night."

Dean looked like he wanted to press for more, wanted to _do _more for him but he hesitated, searching Sam's face though he wasn't sure what for. They held each other's gazes for a long moment, a whirlwind of emotion passing between them – Dean trying desperately to know what the right thing to do was and Sam pleading for Dean to not ask for what he couldn't give. Finally, Dean nodded, and Sam breathed a sigh of relief.

"Was there a reason for him stopping by?" Dean asked instead, sipping his beer. "Other than to just be a dick?"

Sam thought for a moment. "I killed Ramsey."

"Ramsey? What, the… the hellhound?"

Sam nodded, licking his lips.

"Lucifer paid you a visit because of a dead hellhound?"

He shrugged. "It was _his _hellhound." To his surprise, Sam felt himself smile at the words, an odd feeling of mirth taking root in his chest. "I killed his dog." Sam huffed, disbelievingly. He hadn't really thought about it, what that meant, even when it happened. It had been satisfying, yes, but he'd been more focused on protecting the girl of the week than anything else. But now he could and the realization of what he'd done was both empowering and horrifying. He couldn't say why for either feeling. "I killed Lucifer's dog," Sam repeated, his whole body beginning to shake with barely contained laughter even as a few stray tears slipped from his eyes.

Dean looked stricken, startled by the sudden emotion. Sam didn't usually cry. Not about this. Drink and repress was the Winchester way of dealing with hell. Even when he'd slowly been going mad, haunted by far worse things then what Lucifer had done to him tonight, he rarely cried.

He wasn't sure what that said about him. Maybe it was like Lucifer had said – maybe he had gotten soft.

"He was so _pissed_ –" Sam snorted an ugly sound, biting his knuckle as he tried to hold back another laugh because killing the dog was _such_ a personal shot at that stupid bastard and it hadn't even been deliberate. "And I'd do it again," Sam laughed even though it wasn't funny. "It was worth it – all of it, I'd do it again, Dean, just to knock him down another peg. I swear, even if he… oh God, there's something wrong with me." He laughed again and it sounded like crying.

"Aw, Sammy." Dean said softly, scrubbing a hand over his face before sighing deeply. "Come here." He wrapped an arm around his shoulder and pulled him in close. Sam let him, leaning against his brother and breathing in his familiar scent.

The hand that carded its way through his damp hair was gentle, quiet, and patient – nothing at all like Lucifer's raging cruelty.

"What did he do to you?" Dean whispered again, to himself this time. He sounded wrecked and Sam felt his gut clench with guilt.

"I'm sorry," he whispered apologetically. "I'm sorry – I shouldn't have said that. I didn't… I didn't mean it. Not the way it sounded."

Dean nodded tightly, the tension in his body easing a little bit.

Sam rubbed the heel of his hand against his eyes, scrubbing away any tears and sighed, his euphoria disappearing as quickly as it'd come. Now he just felt tired but he knew he wouldn't be sleeping again tonight.

"You going to be okay?" Dean asked after a couple of seconds went by.

"I'm fine," Sam promised quietly. He was grateful when Dean accepted his response and didn't push for more. He didn't think either of them could handle anything else right now.

Wordlessly, Sam lifted up off his brother for a moment when Dean reached over to grab the remote and flick the TV on before rearranging the sheets on both of them. He quickly repositioned his pillows against the headboard and settled back, lifting arm so Sam could lean against him again. "What do you wanna watch?" he asked, when they were both comfortable.

Sam thought for a moment before twitching his lips into a hesitant smile.

"Old Yeller?" he suggested innocently.

This time, they both laughed.

* * *

A/N With everything going on in season 12, what with God leaving again, losing his son, and being locked up and humiliated by Crowley... I just had this thought that Sam killing his dog would be one too many offenses for dear old Luci to handle. Thus, this idea was born. :)

I didn't want to overdo any of the emotions because neither of the boys are super sappy or emotional. They tend to say a lot without really saying _anything _at all and I really hope I pulled that off. I'd love your thoughts!

DragonflyonBreak


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